Equitable Storytelling

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Stories are powerful. Narratives shape the world around us, which is why it is crucial that we approach storytelling equitably. In this episode, we’ll speak with Lisa Moore and Andrea Auguiste to learn about the National Wildlife Magazine’s journey as they strive to become more equitable storytellers and how that impacts philanthropic efforts.

Speakers

Andrea Auguiste – Director of Philanthropy & Social Innovation
Lisa Moore – Editorial Director, Wildlife Magazines
Kaila Drayton – VP of Operations
Nicole Litwiller – Equity and Justice Storytelling Fellow

Note: This episode contains some explicit language.

Transcript

♫ Theme Music ♫

Lisa Moore
It feels wonderful to be elevating these stories and building the relationships that we are with new contributors. And I hope new audiences, I have to believe that we are building relationships with whole new audiences of people who are noticing what the National Wildlife Federation is doing or trying to do, and that they're paying attention. And if we stay in this if we remain devoted to it, and we live it, live the values, I think we're going to bring in a lot of people who we really want in this tent working with us side by side.

♫ Theme Music ♫

Nicole Litwiller
Hello, and welcome to Seeds of Culture Change, a podcast where we are discussing the National Wildlife Federation's journey towards equity and justice. My name is Nicole.

Kaila Drayton
And I'm Kaila.

Nicole Litwiller
And we are your two co-hosts along this journey. Kaila, how're you doing today?

Kaila Drayton
Oh, you know, hanging in random Tuesday afternoon. How are you?

Nicole Litwiller
Yeah, same. Yeah, I've been very tired today. But as always speaking with you, boosts my mood makes me feel more alive. So, happy to be here.

Kaila Drayton
I've been looking forward to our little recording sessions every week. So it's been really fun. And since today's episode is going to center on storytelling, do you have either a story that you heard when you were a kid a book that you remember? Like, how has storytelling been a part or influenced your life?

Nicole Litwiller
Yeah, that is a great question. So I'm going to tackle the, the book as a kid one first. For me, the first thing that came to mind was ‘The Lorax.’ I loved the story of that. And I think that book and then it was turned into a movie really tugs at my heartstrings and makes me feel lots of things for this planet and wanting to take care of it. And I feel like it definitely had some influence over my desire to support environmental efforts. So that's one of the books that came to mind for me. What about you?

Kaila Drayton
Yeah, I love, love children's books. I was such a voracious reader when I was younger. And now I'm like, if I don't have an electronic thing that reads it for me, it's not getting done. Did you have - like in elementary school, I remember that we would have a library day. I don't remember, if it was once a week or once a month, or whatever it was, but you would go in and first, the librarian would read a story. And then we were allowed, like 10 minutes at the end to go and find a book and I was always crisscross applesauce. In the front row, it was the only time I wanted to be in the front for anything when I would listen to the books. But I think my two favorite stories as a kid, 'The Tree of Cranes.'

Nicole Litwiller
I don't know if I know that one.

Kaila Drayton
And 'The Fortune Teller.' So 'The Tree of Cranes' is about a Japanese boy whose mom is folding origami. And it was just so beautiful. I remember the illustrations, I can picture it. I actually think I still have it. And like the little tea cakes and the tub. Like the illustrations were so beautiful in both the books and 'The Fortune Teller' was based in Africa. And so I really appreciated my mom's ability to find books that weren't just centered around white people. Seeing that I grew up in New England, I was the only person of color in my school like my mom really tried. And so those story books were really influential on me as a kid.

Nicole Litwiller
Yeah, I love the image of a little Kaila sitting cross legged in front of a class in the library. That's very, very cute.

Kaila Drayton
Probably shushing everyone. But I think it points to how important and impactful storytelling can be.

Nicole Litwiller
Yeah, absolutely.

Kaila Drayton
And the myriad of ways and mediums and how individuals and organizations and groups are able to share stories.

Nicole Litwiller
Yeah, totally. And I think that's a great introduction to this episode, where we will be talking with two wonderful guests about NWF's journey with equitable storytelling.

Kaila Drayton
So without further ado, here is our interview with Lisa and Andrea

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Nicole Litwiller
Lisa and Andrea, welcome. We are so excited to have you both on Seeds of Culture Change. I am wondering if we could start out with some intros. And I will ask you both to just share your name pronouns if you feel comfortable, your role at NWF and a favorite scent. And Lisa, we can start with you.

Lisa Moore
Oh, it's great to be here. Thank you so much. My name is Lisa Moore. I use she her pronouns. And I'm the editorial director, which means editor of National Wildlife Magazine, which is published by the National Wildlife Federation. And favorite scent, I have to say, whenever I have friends or family coming over, I stick a pot of water on the stove and I pour in cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves, and I put it on simmer. And it makes the whole house smell cozy to me, that is that is my cozy go to scent. So that would have to be it.

Nicole Litwiller
Sounds lovely.

Andrea Auguiste
Oh, Lisa, I'm so happy to be here with you, Lisa. I'm Andrea Auguiste and my pronouns are she her and I am Director of Philanthropy and Social Innovation working to embed our organization's values of equity and justice towards anti-racism in the way the very way we look at raising money. So it's a really exciting role for me. My favorite scent. I'm a southern girl, so I have to go to magnolias and gardenias.

Kaila Drayton
That is lovely. Andrea, I hope you don't take offense to this. I did place a small bet with Nicole, that your answer was going to be a gin and tonic. And so now I owe Nicole money.

Andrea Auguiste
I didn't even think of that!

Nicole Litwiller
maybe if we went with favorite taste, but

Andrea Auguiste
Yeah. elderflower tones as well.

Nicole Litwiller
Gotta get the florals in there. Kaila, do you have a favorite scent you'd like to share? We always got to share our responses too.

Kaila Drayton
Yeah, when I saw this, I grew up in New England. And so I think of November like early November, a rainy afternoon crisp air and the smell of a wood burning fireplace is just lovely and nostalgic to me. What about you, Nicole?

Nicole Litwiller
Yeah, I think maybe the stereotypical response, but is still true to one of my favorite scents, fresh baked cookies, chocolate chip cookies, ugh so good. But I also always loved the smell of like freshly cut cucumbers. I've like eaten cucumbers like their candy since I was a little kid. And I've always, like, I would be in the basement and my mom would be chopping cucumbers. And I'd like run upstairs and grab some cucumbers from her because I could smell them from the basement. So I really liked both of those two scents.

Lisa Moore
let's say cucumbers or gin and tonic.

Kaila Drayton
In the gin and tonic.

Lisa Moore
That works.

Kaila Drayton
And then you drink in front of the fireplace. And now we, you know? Oh my gosh. Well, thank you for that check-in question, Nicole. And thank you, Andrea and Lisa for your responses, since we are concentrating on the changes in storytelling and specific to the changes that NWF has made. I wanted to start out with the question of what does equitable storytelling look like to you? And, Andrea, I'll start with you.

Andrea Auguiste
I would have to start by answering that question by saying that great storytelling is what captures people's attention and drives them to action. And that's so very important. In the world of philanthropy, the world that I live in, when facts and characters and logic, emotion and cause and effect work together. The resulting stories affect us in a really deep way. And that's what really motivates people to want to give. So, in my mind, equitable storytelling is a must. Because we need to cast the net wide to understand whose stories are really important and how those stories connect to others in a way that we may not have known. So it's a deeply important topic and question to the success and the sustainability of any organization today.

Kaila Drayton
Absolutely. Thank you. Same question to you, Lisa. What does equitable storytelling look like to you?

Lisa Moore
It looks like something entirely different now than it did years ago in the magazine. And that's a very good thing. I love what Andrea said about driving people to action, and how the best work starts with a good story. And a colleague of mine, Delaney McPherson has said that we can't be equitable by accident. And that really gets to the idea of the need for intentional change, and making this work organic to everything that we do. So we've been thinking a lot about this on the magazine in recent years, thanks to the equity and justice group in the National Wildlife Federation, and the environmental justice group and some of the trainings that we've been given and that we've sought out for ourselves. And we've realized that, you know, mainstream, for lack of a better word storytelling is full of encoded messages, that sort of center whiteness, and the colonial approach that really has baked in stereotypes against more marginalized communities. And an example of that would be, you know, 'America is a land of opportunity.' Well, the hidden message is, if you're not doing well, it's your fault. And that is, of course, based in the old racist stereotype that's kind of baked in to us. So what we're trying to do is look at those encoded messages, and look at new approaches to storytelling. So our process has changed enormously in recent years, where we've really been trying to move away from sort of an insular bubble of coming up with what stories do we want a center, and who's going to tell them and how are we going to edit them, and put them out there. And we are now working with an editorial advisory board who's giving us feedback on what we're doing. It's a good diverse group from around the Federation who can offer story ideas and tell us things that we need to hear about what we're doing. And we're collaborating more closely with other colleagues in different departments in the organization to get their input. We have hired a lot of new storytellers, people of color, who are bringing new voices, and new perspectives in because our pool of freelancers was virtually all white when I started here. So we are making that change. And then we've been getting training, which I can talk about later on equitable storytelling. And it really starts with story listening. I love that expression. So listening to you know, what stories and voices do we want to elevate? And how do those people in communities want their stories told? And we need to tell them in a way that's going to celebrate their agency, their resiliency, their actions on their own behalf, and tell stories through this sort of asset based framing, so lots of changes. And then finally, just we want to try and start doing what we're thinking of as an equity review of articles, getting colleagues and paying them to sort of look at a story, look at the language tell us if we've goofed, if if there are encoded, some texts in there that we've missed that we should change. So that's sort of where we're heading.

Kaila Drayton
Excellent. Thank you.

Nicole Litwiller
Yeah, thank you for sharing all of that. And I think my next question is kind of building off of some of the things that you've already shared, Lisa, and if you feel like adding anything on to your response. How is NWF shifting how we tell stories and who is being centered? And you can speak from what you've seen on your own team, or if you've seen things shift on other teams as well, because obviously, magazine isn't the only place that tells stories at NWF.

Lisa Moore
I am very magazine-brained so that is my focus. Years ago, at one of our board meetings, a black member of the board, came up to me and said, 'When I open your magazine, I don't see anything about me in there. And you guys have to do better representing BIPOC communities and content that's relevant, or we're irrelevant.' And he was he was absolutely right, obviously. And this year happens to be the 60th year of National Wildlife Magazine. And I've spent some time going through our archives and looking through some of the 360 issues of the magazine that have come out. And you know, it was stunningly obvious, although not terribly surprising that the magazine has had a very white male, Christian, colonial approach to storytelling, and it glorified the old narrative of sort of white saviors, saving the wilderness and wildlife and habitats and with virtually nothing about people. So we're using this training by Luis Ortega who started a group called Storytellers for Change. He is helping us develop a storytelling blueprint for the magazine, which has been incredibly helpful. And it's helping us set what are our objectives our values our principles that are going to guide how we tell stories, how we identify stories and collect them and, and craft them and share them and who's whose voices we elevate. So, you know, I could talk about this too long. So you may need to cut me off. I'll try and very brief. But it's just the the principles are about representation, basically, you know, being intentional about elevating underrepresented stories and groups; equity and justice infusing everything that we do; asset framing, as I mentioned, not going in with a deficit mindset, but looking at what can be celebrated, and the agency of communities and the people whose stories we're telling; partnerships, you know, sharing the creative process, not going in, as we have done in the past, with a set idea of what the story is how it's going to be told. It's much more collaborative now the approach that we're taking. And then importantly, humility and trust, trying to try to realize that, that we have to have a learner's mindset. We have to be willing to hear feedback and change based on the feedback, build trust with our sources and with the communities we're covering, and then being accountable. And that's, you know, doing the work ourselves, how does how does racism show up in us in our work? And how can we measure our progress in this work of equitable storytelling? The most important thing is that all of this doesn't become just a box that we check that we really do live it and show it.

Nicole Litwiller
Yeah, I'm really excited to see where that journey takes you all and in turn takes the organization.

Lisa Moore
Me too.

Nicole Litwiller
Yeah, Andrea, I want to ask the same question to you. How do you feel like NWF is shifting how we tell stories and who's being centered?

Andrea Auguiste
I really appreciate everything that Lisa has said, and the intentional work that NWF has undertaken to be in the place that it is now to ask the questions: Are we telling the story correctly? Are we involving the people who we need to involve? Are we centering them? That journey, though, and to the place where we are now as an organization has not happened overnight. And it has actually been intentional, because of the work of so many who have insisted over and over and over again, that the organization truly undertake this journey. And so the wonderful opportunities that Lisa has talked about, and the ways that we've changed have been because of the work of I would say a few who are really helping the organization understand how to elevate and operationalize its values. It's one thing to say that we are an anti-racist organization, it's one thing to say that we value and elevate equity and justice. It is hard to do that on a daily basis. And when you are in the midst of rapid fire movements and goals, and, you know, deliverables, to take a step back, and really ask the questions that need to be asked. And I think, you know, I'm just so excited that the magazine is in that place, I want to see our entire organization's communications vehicles also adopt that, because that's the opportunity to do what the Federation has said it wants to do. And that's expand this environmental movement to any- and everyone to see themselves, all of us, regardless of their ability to give money or significant amounts of money, but to be a participant, to take ownership of one's responsibility to this earth, and to see themselves a part of it. The Federation has a real opportunity to be seen as a leader by just letting other people lead.

Nicole Litwiller
Absolutely. Yeah. I want to take a minute, too, to acknowledge some of the work that the Black Employee Resource Group has done in pushing the organization to think a little bit more critically about how we communicate and how we tell stories. Andrea, I'm wondering if you could share a little bit about some of those recommendations that have come from the Black Employee Resource Group?

Andrea Auguiste
I've been a part of a committee for over a year now that has undertaken the recommendations from the Black Employee Resource Group, to really evaluate what our communications systems are - how we tell stories, how we reach into the community, even our own community, our own culture, our staff across the nation, to gather stories, and what should be centered versus what shouldn't, and how not to tokenize people just because we want to check a box of diversity when we tell stories. And so this was a really thoughtful, mindful committee that really sought to deepen its understanding of what are the communications vehicles we use? What are our structures, what is our what are our systems? And really determined after a year that we need a deeper dive into how we tell, and how we communicate, because our current communication system is so disparate - the magazine is a vehicle is probably one of our best vehicles, we have website, we have social media, we have a whole department that speaks directly and solely to media, meaning radio, TV, newspapers. However, we don't have a cohesive unit of how we're being proactive in our communications other than with the magazine. So we're trying to, after this year of meeting and taking a deeper dive, we realize that we need to further evaluate: what is the structure that our federation needs to really be proactive, to take advantage of and leverage the many experts that we have in this organization, and position them out more intentionally into communities, to be in partnership, to be speakers, to be at events, and to actually elevate all the many ways that this organization is trying to affect conservation and affect our environment. And we have the people in this organization to really be in partnership more with our community and tell the stories that need to be told. So, Kaila, did you have anything that you wanted to add to that?

Kaila Drayton
No, as per usual Andrea you have so elegantly and eloquently summed up exactly what, what the theme is from all that work. And so I'm so thankful for you and so grateful to that group to be able to take the recommendation that came out of the Black ERG and turn it into something that is now, you know, in the works in kind of, at least getting close to an implementation stage and being able to change the way that we communicate, so it's really incredible.

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Kaila Drayton
Andrea, I'm wondering if you can talk about from a philanthropy perspective why equitable storytelling is so important, and particularly so important to NWF?

Andrea Auguiste
So I've joined the Federation in 2016. And while I have a background in philanthropy and public relations, marketing, communications, jack of all trades, I guess you could say, which is characteristics. So when I came to the Federation, and planning sales, you name it, we encompass those. It was shocking to me how much people talked in acronyms. how passionate people were about the distinguishing, distinguishing a picture of a mule deer versus another deer. And there were people being killed or marginalized or didn't have clean water that didn't seem to matter. And it really, for years, I just continued to be in awe of what was important to the Federation versus what I was experiencing as a human being, just managing the world. And that hasn't changed. Now, but at least the Federation is at a point where it's, it's recognizing it's not on an island. We are in the midst and we are actually leaders, the Federation I would say, of how people can relate to one another and see connections that they may not have seen that the opportunity to tell equitable stories, does not live to the side, it is embedded and should be embedded in everything we do. In all the deliverables, all the tangible vision we see for our world equity and justice is not a side note. Yeah. And it is not an afterthought, if you will, it is how we can really build and grow. And a whole country of people who are attuned to their environment and their surroundings and how they can be a part of it. And so, equitable storytelling to me, invites people to be a part of that. It also recognizes that sometimes people need to be paid in whatever form that is for their services. They don't have to give us- they don't have to cooperate with us. You know, community centric storytelling and fundraising really places the emphasis, not just on the community, and then the partner but as a whole, what are we trying to achieve together? It's an altruism, it's placing the greater good first, and really focusing on that greater good to be able to come together as equals. I just think it's about humanity. It's about being human in this world. And really understanding that none of us have all the answers. And as an organization that has been in this world for so long, 85 plus years, it's sometimes hard not to come to the table as the expert. But we're not always the expert. We do have experts here, just like communities have experts. Let's bring those together, and really accomplish something really, really fantastic.

Kaila Drayton
I'm so glad that you mentioned, too, the piece about the proper identification of wildlife, because they I think for a long time, you know, we we are a conservation organization. And so folks would always ask, you know, if you're a wildlife organization, why are you talking about people. And so we're seeing this shift, not only in the way that we are talking about people that we're talking about people with marginalized identities. But I have also seen this shift into this realm of talking about why people are important and why that connection to other people to wildlife to the Earth is important. Rather than just saying, you know, 'we should go out and save the monarchs,' which we should, and why? Right, like, what does that mean, to us as humans? And why is that important?

Andrea Auguiste
Yeah. You know, when I first joined the Federation, I'm from the South, I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, I am a Black woman, and I was moving to Boulder with my husband, because he had a position at CU Boulder. And I couldn't understand why are all these people so interested in being next to open space? I mean, as a Black person in the South, open space has a tree, you don't necessarily want to be there. And so my connection to nature, when I came on board at the Federation and I would hear people tell the stories of how they would read Ranger Rick as a child or their parents took them to national parks, and they just had these wonderful memories. I don't have those memories as a child. But what I did have was a deep understanding of my responsibility to the earth, instead of extracting from it. My story is like, is spiritual, it's based on not necessarily taking advantage of nature, which is great. I mean, we all should go hiking, and I do that and camping if that's your thing, or however else you feel. But all the other ways that people can connect to nature and to our earth also need to be told. And my story is very different than the typical story I heard when I first joined the Federation. And therefore I didn't think it was valid. You know, I do know it's valid now. And I'm so grateful to this organization for really shifting, just doing things differently is quite an undertaking for big organization. So like I said, it's an exciting time.

Lisa Moore
May I respond to a couple of things that Andrea said? Every time she speaks, I get so much out of it. When we started doing stories about people and showing Black people in the magazine more and doing a story on safe spaces or changing the racist names of birds, got a lot of reader mail that was pretty racist. And I think part of our job is to educate the people who support this organization as to why this is so fundamentally a part of our mission, the connection to nature, the connection of people, the environment, clean air, clean water, healthy wildlife. It's all interrelated. And I think the goal is that the Federation become known as, as you suggest Andrea, the leader in this work, you know that we are recognized as the place that is truly committed to becoming an anti racist organization. And you had said, Andrea a while ago, and I find this so funny, and so helpful. My magazine's starting to do this work and sort of stumbling along and we do a story, and we put a label at the top of it called "equity and justice." And I don't know if you remember this, but you made a comment in our Editorial Advisory Board, like, I don't think you have to label it, you know, it just has to be organically obvious that the story we're doing is appropriate for the magazine and let the material speak for itself. And the people speak for themselves. And I just love that I've kind of held on to that. So now related to that, we just did a profile of this amazing black entomologist named Samuel Ramsey. And he's literally figuring out what's killing honeybees. And he's brilliant. And he's an amazing social media communicator. And the writer said, 'To what extent do we want to point out that he's Black and talk about his Black experience being an entomologist, or just let the work and the story speak for itself?' And so we don't go there at all. It just speaks for itself. So somehow, that's all related. And the idea, too, Andrea that you've raised before, and I'm going to go on the record saying, I think the Federation should consider a mission statement change that really does speak to the people. You know, we say uniting all Americans. And that's sort of that stab at saying, you know, we have to broaden the tent, but to ensure that wildlife and people thrive because one doesn't without the other.

Andrea Auguiste
Yes. We have a responsibility, I really believe, to help people see their connections to one another. And that's the very reason why I went into philanthropy because not that money makes the world go round. It's about helping people to do what we naturally as human beings want to do. And that's give. We give of ourselves, we give our time, we give our networks we give our money. So it's how you relate to people and creating as many doors that people can walk through to see you as you said, Lisa, as that leader, you know, and we are. I mean, NWF has such a multi-prong, such a multifaceted, expansive approach to conservation. There is not one element of what we do that could not appeal to someone, but the way we invite people is the opportunity to see themselves in this. It's really important for philanthropy officers like me, if we want to tell accurate, compelling, emotional stories, we've got to put ourselves on the ground of that work. I've been to Wind River Reservation in Wyoming that is the centerpiece of the Federation's work to restore buffalo to Tribal lands, utilizing Wind River as one of many Tribal lands where buffalo can roam again. And so it's more than just about buffalo. It's about the buffalo and the interconnectedness of the people. It's about food sovereignty. It's about providing opportunities for children and the next generation of conservation stewards, what we talk about, for people on the Reservation to see that they are a part of and very much leading the effort to right America's wrongs. And it's there's so many different stories built into that. I wouldn't know that if I didn't actually put myself on the ground and also invite donors to be on the ground of that work.

Kaila Drayton
Lisa, in talking about the shift of of storytelling in the magazine, I am trying to remember this point in time and I vaguely remember some fear about, 'are we going to lose readership, or is there going to be backlash? Is there going to be such a negative effect to changing who we're centering in the stories and how we're telling these stories?' I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that moment in time and the impacts of changing who we were focusing on in our stories.

Lisa Moore
Sure, as I said, when we started changing our storytelling and broadening the stories, we were elevating the voices and the people I did, and I still get letters from some readers who take great exception, they come to the magazine to escape from the news and from strife, and they just want to see pretty pictures of wildlife. And the main accusation was, 'you're being political, you're being woke.' It got extremely racist on one level, but a lot of the people were just like, 'why are you doing this? It's mission drift.' And I hope I got adept at responding in a way that made sense about why the Federation- and I talked to colleagues in communications, Mike Saccone, and others about how to frame the messaging, just to you know, thank them for their feedback and their support of the Federation. And to explain that our mission is to unite all people in helping to save wildlife and habitat for the sake of all of us because we are interrelated. I doubt I'm changing any minds on some of these readers. And for those who choose to stop supporting the Federation, personally, good riddance, in my opinion. I think the upside of doing this work, aside from the fact it's the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do. All of the evidence and the studies show that the broader the base, the more inclusive you can be, the more equitable, the more diverse inside and outside, so our staff and our membership, the more successful you'll be, probably the more money you'll raise, the better conservation work you'll do, the better stories you'll tell, the better decisions you'll make. So the number of those letters has been dwindling. So maybe it was a small vocal minority who were disgruntled. And that's those are the kinds of people you tend to hear from anyway. We get very positive mail to and yeah. It feels wonderful to be elevating these stories, and building the relationships that we are with new contributors, and I hope new audiences. I have to believe that we are building relationships with whole new audiences of people who are noticing what the National Wildlife Federation is doing or trying to do, and that they're paying attention. And if we sustain this, if we remain devoted to it, and we live it, live the values, I think we're going to bring in a lot of people who we really want in this tent working with us side by side.

Kaila Drayton
I remember when the magazine finally decided, like, when y'all decided to take that first big step forward. And it was one of the moments that I realized that we were really going to do this. I remember, I think it was 2020 I had taken a couple of days off. And I came back to this announcement of we were going to be an anti-racist organization. I was like, 'Who decided that?' Cuz I'm not sure that y'all understand what's gonna go into doing that work. And I think we had, you know, attempted various things over the years, and none of them really took a foothold. And so my faith in the organization moving towards equity and justice was was not very great. And then I heard the talk about the shift in storytelling, and you know, the concerns about losing readers. And then when y'all finally did it, I was like, 'oh holy shit, we're going to do it. We're, we're really doing this work now. Like, we're really, we're really doing this.' And so there, there have been a couple of key moments for me personally, where I really realized how serious the organization was in doing equity and justice work, and that was definitely one of them. For sure.

Lisa Moore
May I say that a couple of years ago, there was some discussion about the magazine doing an entire issue, a special issue devoted to equity and justice, and you pulled the plug on it. Thank God. I was so stressed about that, because I think in my gut, I knew 'you don't have the competencies yet to do this well.' It just felt rushed. And I'm so grateful to you that you called that out. And I think one of the hard things to learn in this process for white people is the need to go slowly and thoughtfully, and not for the quick fix. And you've really helped us do that, Kaila, in so many ways. So now I feel like the content is flowing out more steadily. We're committed to something in every issue of the magazine, it just feels more real. So I appreciate that guidance.

Kaila Drayton
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's been really a great transition to watch.

Andrea Auguiste
It's really about staying committed to the process, rather than an endpoint. Because there won't ever really be an end point. We've just got to be intentional, as you've said, Lisa, all the time, to ask questions, to be vulnerable, to be humble, and to understand that more can be accomplished when there are more at the table. And there are opportunities for people to be engaged and feel connected.

Nicole Litwiller
Yeah, absolutely. Well, we don't have any more questions for y'all. But I'm wondering if either of you have any final thoughts that you'd like to leave the listeners with today, and Andrea, I'll pass it over to you first.

Andrea Auguiste
I would, I just want to underscore how grateful I am. Even though I don't always act that way. I think it's my duty as an employee of this organization to be a nemesis, sometimes to be the voice who is pointing out and calling attention to what perhaps we don't do well. And I also recognize that there aren't many institutions for profit, nonprofit, that would be so bold and brave, as the Federation has been under Collin's leadership and our board and in our many donors. We are very fortunate to have such a loyal donor base. People have been giving to this organization for decades, they love it. So I just think we need to start relating more with one another in the ways that most any human being can relate to. And that's how we can all make a difference.

Nicole Litwiller
Yeah, thank you so much. Lisa, any final thoughts?

Lisa Moore
I think that's such a beautiful note to end on. I love that Andrea mentioned humanity. You know, I think if she said it gives them a reason. And I think we are doing that and is genuine a way we can right now acknowledging our mistakes, but sincerely approaching the work. And I'm proud of this organization, and its leadership and sort of the direction that we're heading in. So I hope people will continue to support us.

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Nicole Litwiller
I really appreciated talking to Lisa and Andrea. And I always appreciate like unique connections. And I think magazine and philanthropy are not things that we would initially think about as like going together. But yeah, it made a lot of sense to have them on this episode together. So Kaila, what did you think?

Kaila Drayton
Yeah, what a fun interview, what a great conversation. I was reflecting on the instance that Lisa alluded to around the special equity issue of the magazine and how it was going to kind of be like a deluxe issue, and it was going to be in the middle of the year. And I had raised concerns about, well, what are we going to do for the rest of the year, right, like, shouldn't just be highlighting it once. Like, let's make sure that we're highlighting the right people for the rest of the year. And I think that it was just really a moment where Lisa could have decided to go forward with it anyway, but really took a moment to listen to weigh the options and realized that the approach should start a little bit further back a little bit deeper to really adjusting the tone of the magazine and who were soliciting as contributors, et cetera, et cetera, as like a full revamp. And I know he said it before, but I am so grateful because it was really one of the moments that I felt like someone was listening. You know, I felt like someone was listening and then they actually did what they said they were going to do. Lisa did what she said she was going to do. And so it's a story that I keep in the back of my mind when things get really hard, or when I start to lose hope. What are your reflections?

Nicole Litwiller
Yeah, well, I think that's a really great point, what you have brought up and just I feel like it's something that we've been saying throughout the season so far. Just that like equity and justice is not like a singular, one-time thing add on, it needs to be embedded. And I think this conversation really helped show why that's so important, and how valuable that is. And at one point, towards the end of our conversation, Lisa just said, like, not only is it the right thing to do, it's the strategic thing to do. And I think that's one of the things that I'm taking away from this conversation, because so often, when we're thinking about like, Okay, we're going to be public about our equity and justice work or something related to equity and justice. A lot of times I think, especially for white people, or people with other dominant identities, they go to a fear mindset and are afraid of like, who are we going to lose if we start talking about this. And that is really not a helpful framing. First of all, you're centering whiteness. Second of all, we're not thinking about the opportunities that can come from this and the like, massive benefits for just like being humans that come from centering equity and justice. And so I think that's one of the things that I was taking away. And one of the reasons why I really appreciated Andrea's presence in this as well, because she has seen how valuable this can be from a philanthropy perspective. And every conversation I have with her, she makes it so clear why it's so important that we have a clear narrative and message around equity and justice because people want to support that work and can't do it if they don't know that we're doing it. So we got to talk about it.

Kaila Drayton
And I think another thing that Andrea brought up, well, both Andrea and Lisa, is if you just want to take it down to brass tacks: One, we need to be doing equity work, because it's the right thing to do. And two, there's no way for us as an organization to stay relevant if we don't. And I think putting it like that it becomes so laughably simple. Yeah, that it does get a little bit hard for me to understand the folks who are resistant.

Nicole Litwiller
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I just think I so want to be a place where people who have been excluded from this movement in the past can find what feels like a home for them in the conservation space, and no longer feel excluded and feel like, welcomed and embraced. And I think we've come a long way. And I think we have a long way to go.

Kaila Drayton
Agreed. One of the things that you and I Nicole have talked about is yes, we're making great strides forward in racial equity. But there's still things that we as an organization aren't even prepared to tackle yet. And so I guess I'm, maybe excited isn't the right word, because there's also this kind of heaviness that comes along with it. But I can't wait for the day that we can have disabled voices at the table, that we can have all the voices that we're not even considering yet at the table. And so as you say, you know, we've, we've made some good progress, but we certainly have a long way to go.

Nicole Litwiller
So I'd like to encourage listeners to take some time and reflect on the stories that you hear on a daily basis, whose stories are being uplifted, who is being centered in those stories? How are the people in those stories is being talked about? I think it's really important to start recognizing the ways that we talk about different groups of people. And that really impacts how we perceive the world and how we interact with the world. And so, again, I hope if you've taken anything away from this episode, it's that stories are really powerful. Narratives are powerful. And we need to be aware of those because they're all around us.

Kaila Drayton
Absolutely. And I love that reflection. And I would say even on top of that, find two different stories, one that centers a white person, or someone with a dominant identity, and then pick a story that centers a person of color and look at the words that are used to describe the person being centered. What are the words used to describe the person in the white centered story? And what are the words being used to describe someone who is a person of color and I think that you will be shocked to look at those differences. So thanks you Nicole for that reflection. Thanks to our listeners, we will talk to y'all next time.

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Nicole Litwiller
This podcast is created and hosted by Kaila Drayton and Nicole Litwiller. It is produced by Nicole Litwiller. Stephen Angelo is our editor and audio engineer. All the music you hear throughout the podcast is composed by Luke Litwiller. Thank you to the Equity and Justice Team and many others within the National Wildlife Federation for your support in the creation of this podcast, and for your work towards equity and justice. If you have any reflections or comments you'd like to share with us, please send an email to seedsofculturechange@nwf.org. And don't forget to like, comment and subscribe so that other agents of organizational change can find this podcast. Thanks for listening. Now go plant some seeds of change.

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